the war in Iraq hits home

I don't really think about what a newspaper does. For me, it's just a thing that I happen to work for, a piece of paper that prints my articles so that I can get a paycheck every two weeks. It's also something that helps me quench my thirst for writing and makes me feel like I'm doing some kind of "good" in the world.

I forget that people actually find out news from it. Today, I was that person.

I was browsing through the West Alabama section of today's Tuscaloosa News when I saw that my features editor wrote another article featuring a soldier who had died in Iraq... a series of articles that have been running for several weeks. I glanced at the picture.. then stared harder. It was Andrew Chris, a guy I went to high school with... he was a senior when I was a freshman. I remember that he was a quiet guy, who hung out with a variety of kids.. i remember him quietly painting in the corner of my art classroom.

Apparently he died in Iraq in June 2003. How strange.. that two years after his death I'm finding out about it from "my" own newspaper. It's so strange. I've been against the war in Iraq since the beginning. I remember writing editorials about it in my college newspaper before it started. But it has still been something distant for me. Something that was important on the grand scheme of things, but something that was necessarily going to affect me or my hometown. I guess it did and I just didn't know it.

Today, two things happened: I was reminded that the purpose of a newspaper isn't so that the reporters can make a living, but to spread news and to serve a purpose to its readers. And, the war in Iraq hit home. It took a couple years, but now someone I knew, even remotely, has died because of it.

Does that make me more sympathetic towards the war? No. I support the men and women in the military, because they are serving their country. But it doesn't make what our country is doing any better or any more right.

Link to article about Andrew Chris: http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051212/NEWS/512120328/1007